I left my mop, bucket and cleaning supplies in the closet

It is very late and evidently way past my usual bedtime.  I have just cleaned two large public restrooms, mopped few hundred square feet of the office floor, not to mention diligently wiped down nearly thirty desks, four conference rooms and one large TV room at our Company.   My Sunday started with an 8 a.m. meeting fulfilling my usual duties, which carries the title of "Director of Innovation and Growth" at our company.  

I won't bore you with all the details of my Sunday.  Big job, big title, telling people what they should do.  From overseeing financial forecasts and strategic vision to reviewing new ventures.  I can't dismiss how all these activities help boost my ego and pride.   I surely love it and enjoy it.  It makes me feel important, powerful and relevant.   

When I was younger and worked at a fast food restaurant, as part of my job I cleaned toilets.  It truly shaped me, and it was an incredible experience.  

It has been almost two decades since the first job and cleaning toilets, but I did it again tonight.  And it was still an incredible experience.   I had a fun Super Bowl Sunday with our cleaning crew at our company office with lots of cleaning supplies and little bit of back pain.  By the way, they are amazing people.  Tonight was once again a great reminder of lessons that I often neglect in life while chasing titles, money, fame, pride, etc.  

The truth is that cleaning toilets and wiping down desks still teach me a lot about myself, about people, and about how our society works.  

Some of the lessons are very simple and quite obvious, as the skill of paying attention to detail when cleaning an office.  For example how I must pay attention to more detail in space while cleaning it is how I should pay attention to detail in life that I frequently overlook.   In fact, the simple skill of paying attention to detail is very similar to how present we should be in whatever we do.    

Earlier in the evening, I had to inform my friends,  that I needed to stay at work and clean toilets instead of watching the Super Bowl with them.  It wasn't good for my ego and it felt a little bit inferior and quite frankly low.  It caused me initially feeling uncomfortable and awkward thinking about how my friends would think of me after I told them I needed to stay back and clean our office.  They thought my job had something to do with "Innovation and Growth."  However, seeing their reaction when I told them point-blank that I needed to stay back and clean the office as part of my work didn't go too well with them.   I guess we can tell a lot about a person from the way they react.  

At the Company, I am often noisy therefore noticeable.  But the most vital part of cleaning the office was what I  learned from being invisible.  Tonight, the wonderful lady that cleans our office told me that she finds herself getting to know our Company staff without ever meeting them.  She feels warm care and empathy towards our Company staff.  It makes me wonder, why is it that she can feel this way about people whom she has never met in real life, yet everywhere around me, people choose not to empathize with people standing right next to them?

Once again, cleaning examined my ego and pride.  Unlike university or professional work where we've always extrinsically driven and encouraged in the form of grades, degrees, prestige, or promotion, in cleaning no one is there to give us those grades, degrees, titles or promotions.  Instead, it is all about the kind of spirit and energy one brings to the task at hand, which primarily applies to everything in life.  

As much as a part of me badly wanted to whine and complain about my long Sunday at work, when I finished cleaning the office along with our cleaning crew, I just couldn't deny how peaceful I felt.  It felt good getting lost in the relaxing beat of wiping those IKEA desks and the reflective concentration of focusing entirely on one task at a time.  Every day I feel like too many tabs are open in my brain.   It is surprising how therapeutic, even healing wiping down tables, mopping the floor or scrubbing toilet bowls feel.   

The strangest and most fascinating part is how as I was cleaning the office, invariably struck with new ideas for writing, even poems, and so many other things in my work and personal life.  I sensed constraints of time or assignments no longer put a lid on my creativity and imagination.  Maybe there is something in these cleaning supplies I purchased from Target, I don't know, but something has happened to my mind and how and what I think.  

Tonight I was the cleaner and not a Director of Innovation and Growth.  And being a cleaner made me feel like I was invariably bouncing between two worlds.  I'm referring to the world of being served in life by others and the world of serving others.  The world of supposed 'high' and the world of supposed 'low'.  The world of being noticed and regarded as well as the world of being ignored and disregarded.   

The rotation between different titles and roles, which kind of feels strange yet unique:  dressing up and having a big title and writing about innovation and strategy for one part of my job to scrubbing toilets the very same day.  

Being caught in the middle of the two worlds, I was forced to disconnect and take a step back and push myself to see the greater picture;  it still just doesn't  make sense to me how cleaning something that essentially makes a place better and helping others is so looked down upon in our culture and society.  When navigating both ends of the societal spectrum, being a cleaner forces me to shut off the noise of the world around me because the cultural pressure of over-valuing status and standing seems to create the noise of our world in the first place.  

Tonight I had a chance to think about this implied nonsense of how we are taught to confine ourselves in by chasing status and reputation over character.  Fame or reputation is only the collection of people's opinion about us, sometimes created over the years yet can easily be destroyed in seconds.   The Character is doing the right thing even if no one else, do, or when no one else sees it, actions taken from genuinely higher understanding.   

Tonight I had a genuine chance to experience empathy, affinity, mindfulness, and understanding through the cleaning crew that we so often neglect and disregard. 

I left my mop, bucket and cleaning supplies in the closet.  I think I have to visit them more often.  I am tired but at ease. I'll sleep better tonight.
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If you want to swing between the two worlds, well; you know where to find my mop and bucket.